Breathing Under Water Review: Two Women, One Unforgettable Kid

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Thank you to Harper Muse for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are our own.

Looking for a book with one of the most memorable teenage characters you’ll read this year? You just found it.

Breathing Under Water by Jacqueline Friedland isn’t one that was originally on my radar, but I’m happy to have read it.

This review breaks down this dual-POV women’s fiction novel and why it’s worth your time. Two women, a vice principal and a college swimmer, are pulled into each other’s orbit by one autistic teenage boy. Add a marriage unraveling in silence, a grandmother losing herself to dementia, and a scholarship hanging by a thread. This book asks a lot of its characters, and mostly, they rise to meet it.

Read more below about why this one should be added to your TBR.

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Summary

Berry has spent years holding her family together. She’s an assistant principal on the verge of a potential promotion, a mother of two, and the one steering most decisions about her son Leo’s future. Leo is sixteen, autistic, and so very brilliant in his own way, sharp, funny once you get to know him, and extremely knowledgeable about the handful of subjects he loves. Her husband Phil has started pulling away, and Berry can’t get him to tell her why.

Across town, McKenna is running on fumes. She’s a college swimmer defending a scholarship that pays for everything, a nursing student stacking clinical hours, and the only family her grandmother Glory has left. She’s also teaching swim lessons at a local country club to earn extra money over the summer. Glory’s memory is starting to slip, and McKenna is already doing the math on what that means for both of them.

Separate from her paid instructor job, McKenna needs to log community service hours to keep her scholarship, so she takes on a volunteer swim program for kids on the spectrum. Leo becomes her assistant. The two of them are strangers at the start. What follows becomes something nobody expected.

One chaotic lesson changes everything. A single bad afternoon spirals into an accusation, a canceled program, and a scholarship on the line. McKenna loses almost everything she’s built. Leo, the boy everyone underestimated, is the one who refuses to let that stand.

This is the story of two women drowning in different directions. McKenna needs a lifeline, and Leo becomes exactly that. Berry’s rescue looks different. As Leo grows more independent and finds his footing socially, Berry finally learns to loosen her grip, let him breathe on his own, and start focusing more on what she dreams of doing.

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Format Notes

I read this as an ARC gifted directly from Harper Muse. The chapters move fast, alternating neatly between Berry and McKenna, which made this an easy book to pick up for twenty minutes and then not put down for two hours.

One more thing, don’t skip the author’s note at the end. Friedland shares that she was surrounded early on by her mother’s lifelong passion for helping children with special needs. That early exposure clearly shaped how she sees the world, and it shows in every page of Leo’s story.

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Review

First Impressions

This book hit close to home before I even got to Leo’s story. We very recently lost my mother-in-law to dementia, so when Glory’s decline started showing up on the page, I felt it. The binder she prepares in advance, listing out her own care instructions before she forgets how to ask for help? The painful fact that someone who raised you doesn’t remember you at all. Those details alone told me Friedland had done her homework.

Then Leo arrived, and I knew exactly where my loyalty would land for the rest of the book.

Friedland doesn’t ease you into these two women’s lives. She drops you straight into the middle of both of them, already overwhelmed, already juggling too much. I was hooked from the very first page. Seriously, that prologue had me ready to dive right in.

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Story & Structure

The book alternates between Berry and McKenna, and that structure carries the pacing well. Both women get equal space, and neither storyline feels like filler while you wait for the other one to pick back up.

The one thing I wanted more of: Leo. He’s the character everyone’s life orbits around, but we only ever see him through Berry’s worry or McKenna’s growing understanding. A third POV, even just a few chapters sprinkled throughout for Leo, would have made an already strong book even better.

Berry’s half of the story runs on two collisions happening at once: Phil shutting her out of their marriage, and Leo needing more independence than perhaps she’s ready to give him. She’s fighting for a promotion, fighting to get her husband to talk, and fighting her own instinct to protect Leo from every hard thing. Friedland doesn’t rush that tension. It builds for most of the book, and by the time the truth about Phil comes out, you understand exactly why Berry didn’t see it coming.

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Characters

Leo is the reason to read this book. He’s specific in a way that never feels like a stand-in for “autistic character.” He has real obsessions, real frustrations, and a stubborn kind of courage that will surprise you. By the final act, he’s the bravest person in the story, and nobody around him saw it coming.

Berry rounds out the trio, and honestly, I found her perfectly likable. She’s controlling, she’s anxious, and she makes some calls about Leo’s life without asking him first. But she’s just trying her best while holding many collapsing situations together at once, and Friedland lets her be flawed about it instead of handing her easy answers.

McKenna is the one I have more mixed feelings about. She’s great, don’t get me wrong, and she’s furious for good reason when the club shuts down the swim program over one rowdy afternoon, the kids got a little loud and unruly, nothing more. That anger is completely fair. But that same short fuse shows up elsewhere too. She feels about ready to blow at any minute, and more than once, she does. But I also feel like it was purposeful to write her in this way.

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Setting & Atmosphere

This story takes place in a Long Island suburb, in the middle of an ordinary summer. Nothing about the setting is flashy, and that’s part of what makes it work. Berry’s world moves between her school office and her own kitchen table. McKenna’s moves between the country club pool, campus, and her grandmother’s house.

The country club is where most of the story happens. It’s where Leo and McKenna meet, where the swim lessons start, and where everything eventually falls apart. Friedland gives us just enough detail to picture it clearly, without slowing down to describe every tile and towel.

Glory’s house shows up less often, but it matters just as much. Watching it get listed for sale, packed up, and sold says a lot about what McKenna is losing, without the book needing to spell it out.

Nothing about the setting is dramatic on its own. It’s the ordinary, everyday version of Long Island, and that’s exactly what makes the story feel real.

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Themes & Takeaways

This is not just a book about autism, and it’s not just a book about dementia. Underneath both, it’s asking the same question from different angles: what do we owe the people who depend on us, and when does protecting someone start holding them back?

Berry has to learn that preparing Leo for independence means loosening her grip, not tightening it. McKenna has to learn that needing help isn’t the same as failing. And by the end, Leo’s growing independence and improving social skills are what finally give Berry permission to let go a little. He doesn’t just need saving. He ends up doing some of the saving himself.

McKenna’s story also points to something bigger than one bad afternoon at a pool. This kind of pressure is real for a lot of college athletes. Scholarships tend to cover tuition, not rent, food, or a cushion for when life goes sideways all at once. Between training, coursework, service-hour requirements, and just trying to become an adult, the margin for error is razor-thin. McKenna’s story isn’t dramatized for effect. It’s uncomfortably close to what a lot of student-athletes actually navigate.

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What Worked Best

• Leo. One of the most memorable characters I’ve read this year
• The McKenna and Leo relationship, which earns every bit of its payoff
• Berry’s marriage subplot, which builds real tension instead of rushing it
• The dementia storyline, handled with real specificity and care
• The pacing in the back half, which turns genuinely hard to put down

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What I Wanted More Of

My one real note: I wanted a Leo POV. We spend the whole book hearing about him from two women who love him but still underestimate him. A few chapters from inside his head would have made this book hit even harder.

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Final Thoughts

Jacqueline Friedland takes on autism, dementia, marriage, and financial hardship in one book. There were moments this book made me want to talk back to the characters, especially when it came to how quickly people underestimated Leo. It isn’t a perfect book, but it’s an honest one, and it earns its emotional moments instead of manufacturing them.

I loved Friedland’s writing style enough that I’m already looking forward to picking up her other books. This is exactly the kind of book you press into a friend’s hands and tell them to text you the second they finish, so you can talk about it all together.

Want to dig deeper into the story? We put together a full set of discussion questions for Breathing Under Water — perfect for book clubs or anyone who just needs to talk the whole thing through. 👉 [Discussion Questions: Breathing Under Water by Jacqueline Friedland]

Which storyline hit you hardest, Berry’s, McKenna’s, or Leo’s? Tell us in the comments!

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Ready to dive in? Here’s where you can grab your copy.

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If Breathing Under Water left you thinking about found family, resilience, and the people who show up when we need them most, here are a few places to explore:

Jacqueline Friedland Official Website 
Want to learn more about Jacqueline Friedland? Visit her official website to browse all of her books, read about her background, and see what she’s working on next. It’s also the best place to find upcoming events, book club resources, and the latest news about her novels.

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If Breathing Under Water Moved You, Read These Next

Where the Forest Meets the Stars – An unlikely bond forms between two people who each carry more than they let on, and healing shows up in a form nobody expected. If the Leo-and-McKenna connection was your favorite part of Breathing Under Water, this one hits that same note.

Lost in the Summer of ’69 – Both books center women finding themselves through unexpected connection, and both reward readers who love found family over blood family.

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More From Jacqueline Friedland

Explore additional works by the author and stay updated on upcoming releases.

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Other Recommendations

If Breathing Under Water hit the right notes for you, add these to your list:

Still Alice by Lisa Genova  A brilliant professor’s early-onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis unravels her sense of self in real time. If Glory’s storyline resonated with you, this one goes even deeper into that same fear.

House Rules by Jodi Picoult A mother fighting for her autistic son collides with the justice system. Same fierce maternal love and impossible choices that drive Berry’s half of the story.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman A small town’s entire identity gets wrapped up in the pressure put on its junior hockey team. If McKenna’s scholarship stress hit you hard, this one shows how far that pressure can spiral when the adults around these kids look away.

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